Flooding expected in southern Belize

Tropical depression number sixteen is now behind us but it doesn’t mean we are out of the woods. The National Emergency Management Organisation says that the tropical depression has weakened as it moves over Central Guatemala and Western Nicaragua. That is the good news. The bad news is that the system will continue to dump heavy amounts of rainfall over southern Belize for the remainder of the week, creating flooding all the way in the north of Belize. But worse, is that another weather system is closing in behind the weak storm and will produce additional rainfall next week on the already saturated land mass. This will increase the likelihood of further run-offs and flash floods and today News Five checked with Chairperson of NEMO, Noreen Fairweather, to find out how emergency operations are going in the affected areas.

Noreen Fairweather, Chairperson, NEMO
“We are getting flooding conditions in the south. We’re looking at the area of Graham Creek and Machaquila and Jordan. To the north areas such as San Antonio, San Roman and Douglas, we have flooding conditions in those areas as well. People have been moved to higher ground in those communities. Nobody is currently in shelters in the northern part of the country. In the south we have thirty-five persons in shelters, primarily from the area of Hope Creek and some from Sara Wee. They are at the ITVET schools on the Valley Road. NEMO district coordinating committee is providing support to these persons with food supplies and that sort of thing. The district committee continues to monitor the situation. In terms of the logistics and operational with the crossing at Kendall Bridge, we have the B.D.F. boat at the site crossing people. The water level at Kendall has subsided a bit but it’s still raining heavily. It was at six feet this morning. I just returned from Kendall and the water level is right now at four feet above the crossing. There still a need to cross people, not to say that—we’re not sure that it will continue to go down because the rain does continue to fall in that area so again for the most part we would just like to ward motorists using the highways, particularly the south to be careful when driving along the road. There are a lot of areas along the Stann Creek Valley Road and the Hummingbird Highway where there’s lots of water actually crossing the road and it can be very dangerous if one does not proceed with caution in these areas.”

Marion Ali
“Okay, so how long before the operation, before you don’t see it necessary again?”

Noreen Fairweather
“Marion, the rain will continue. Our advice from the Met Department is saying that we may get a break on Sunday, there may be a lapse in the weather, but there is another system that will bring a lot of rain moving towards our direction. Right now it’s off the coast of Nicaragua, Honduras, off the coast there. And we do expect that system is coming right behind early next week for another couple of days; Monday, Tuesday to Wednesday to bring a significant amount of rain. So while that system may not be a depression as such, it’s a low-lying system that will bring maybe four to five inches of rain in this area again. So they still have to monitor the flood levels on the rivers and we still have to be alert and be cautious with how we drive on the highways and the people in the communities, particularly along the rivers, still have to be very vigilant and be on the alert for rising levels of the waters in their area. We do expect to get some more rains next week.”